


the swiss holiday

by chiseledclay



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-12-05 10:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiseledclay/pseuds/chiseledclay
Summary: He can hear Roger taking a deep breathe in.“Maybe you should finally come visit, you know?”Rafa has to lean against the desk then, to calm his nerves.





	1. Save me from Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> I've been cumulatively writing this since October last year when these two were both injured lol. So it'll be pretty angsty since I was very angsty. I'll post a bit at a time. Let me know what you think :)

 

 

 

Rafa almost drops his phone when he sees the name flashing across his screen.

“Hello? Roger?”

“Rafa, hey.”

 

They pause for a second, aware of how soon it’s been since they last talked. He’d tried in the last few years to keep some distance from Roger and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

It is just a few weeks after Roger came in to help open his academy, where they hadn’t been able to get a word in because there were so many people. Even lunch that day hadn’t been intimate, even as they sat next to each other for an hour making idle chit chat, all while the chefs and waiters and camera crew stared at them and snapped away. Rafa had wondered what they saw. He himself was never really sure when it came to Roger.

It’s been a year since their last match, that match in Basel where they went out for dinner and it was really fun until it was a bit awkward, as it always had been between them. Rafa could never seem to wipe that look off his face, that look of longing he got sometimes when he spent time with Roger.

“How are you, Rafa?”

“Fine. You?”

“Yeah, good. Starting to miss you, haha.”

 

And Roger never could really stop his flirting - the teasing remarks and the little smiles he liked to get out of Rafa, the too personal questions and the intimacy that he teased at, like poking a fire, until it got a bit too hot and they distanced themselves again, focusing instead of safe topics like tennis and the player’s council.

“Roger, we saw each other last month, no?”

“Yeah. Was great. Loved it.”

 

Rafa is feeling raw and uncertain. He’s still reeling off the losses in China, and the medical examination of his wrist had confirmed his worst fears: the recurring wrist injury was very very recurring. He would always need more rest, more gaps in his tour. Right now the waiting game was driving him a bit mad.

“You still back at home?”

  
Rafa sighs.

  
“Yes, back at home in Mallorca. I was in Barcelona a few days just to look at the wrist and then Italy for some golf. But now...urrgh. How are you Roger? How is your knee?”

“Good. I’m alright. I really miss playing. Rehab’s going well, though. I should be good for next year, hopefully....”

“Good.”

“....been doing a lot of hiking and all that...”

  
Rafa can almost hear Roger shrugging, casually confident and not a care in the world. But he doesn’t sound as light as he used to.

  
“Oh, yes. I think i saw on your twitter, no?”

“Yes. Lots of nice trails. Mountains and lakes….flowers..”

“Yes. Switzerland looks very beautiful on the twitter.”

 

He can hear Roger taking a deep breathe in.

“Maybe you should finally come visit, you know?”

 

Rafa has to lean against the desk then, to calm his nerves.

“Rafa, I meant what I said in Mallorca a few weeks ago.”

 

Rafa sits down and looks outside his window. It’s a lovely day at his academy. He can hear children shouting from the basketball and tennis courts. The sun is shining, and in the distance, the sea is azure blue. Mary’s in her office, organising lesson plans and tending to the day to day needs of the school and hostel. She’s infectiously happy with her job. If he could envision the perfect life for himself this should be it.

So why would he rather be anywhere else?

This place reminds him of the three months he spent injured, away from Roland Garros and away from Wimbledon. There’s a bout of cabin fever prickling his skin. He would never think he’d voluntarily travel somewhere colder and less sunny, but….

“When?”

“Oh. Um. Ha. Tomorrow! If you want?”

Rafa laughs.

 

“It’s just a short plane trip away, Rafa.”

“True.”

Roger lets out a whoop of joy.


	2. In the Mountains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if there are swiss things i haven't represented properly and I'm happy to make corrections.

Roger’s found a newfound love for photography. Maybe it’s the really good camera on his phone, given to him by some sponsor or the other. Maybe it’s the surroundings - the beauty of his country all around him as he walks up and down mountains to strengthen his knees.

Didn’t people say you appreciate things more as you got older? And maybe things seem even more beautiful, Roger thinks, now that he he’s finally showing Rafa around. Everyone felt that, didn’t they? That need to put on your country’s best face when a visitor came by?

 

Maybe this is because of his new found appreciation for twitter, being so far away from his fans and from the tennis world for longer than he has in 15 years. He’s in an inspired mood. He taps away, framing shots of mountains and toadstools and propping his phone up on a rock so that the automatic timer can go off when he’s posed a few metres away, mid-stride.

Rafa gets lost in the surroundings enough for Roger to sneak-photograph him. Sure, he’s got a few more lines on his face, and his hair’s a bit more straggly, but when he’s gazing over at the ice-capped mountains, the thousand yard stare glinting in his brown eyes and his cheekbones prominent in the angled sunlight of Der Schweiz, he makes for a great muse. There would always be something beautiful about Rafa, something immortal about the emotions he showed on his soft, lovely face.

He looks sad, and Roger gives him his space. The weirdness between them never really had gone away - that strange sense of destiny and intimacy and the knowledge that one step closer, one step out of sense and sensibility, and they would be like two binary stars, crashing into each other. After so many years, Roger was familiar with it, like an old friend. They never spoke about it, but it was obvious in the way they interacted with each other. Right now, if anyone were to look at the photo reel of Roger’s phone, it’d be more than obvious.

There’s Rafa perched on a rock, frowning at the sky, gazing at the lakes and the mountains and into his phone. Rafa transitioning between two of his facial expressions that were unique to only him. Rafa holding up Roger’s binoculars, trying to see the mountains better. And then Rafa is shivering on the trail, trying to warm himself up by jumping up and down, even though he naturally runs warm. The shutter speed of an iphone camera is only fast enough to catch the blurry motion of his body, up and down, up and down, like the beginning of a match before the coin toss.

Rafa bats Roger’s hand away a few times as he’s about to click the camera, and then gives up with a shy smile.

“You need this many photos of me?”

“Well I cannot believe you are finally here, you know, it’s unbelievable. So many years I’ve invited this guy, and only now he accepts. And please, it’s the scenery, not you!” Roger teases, but he’s giggling, so Rafa knows he’s lying, that it’s that weird thing between them again that Rafa doesn’t dare prod at too much. So he poses and makes silly faces, and then it devolves into a lot of joint selfie taking that has Roger joking that they’ve turned into a pair of teenagers.

 

“Well we _are_ still young, Roger, no matter-”

“Young, sure!”

“-no matter what anybody says.”

 

They sit down in a field of edelweiss and spread their lunch out on a checkered picnic cloth - cold cuts, bread, crunchy salad, raclette, olives, pasta. Roger’d made sure to order an entire army’s worth.

“Should I post this one on my twitter, or this one?” Roger swipes back and forth to show Rafa.

“Hmm. Maybe first one.”

Roger meticulously captions it and adds Rafa’s twitter handle, and spends an unacceptable fifteen minutes trying to decide which emojis to use.

“Are you the scrunchy face laughing emoji or the teeth laughing emoji?” Roger asks.

“Seriously?” Rafa raises a judgemental eyebrow. “Roger, all this time in the higher alto- altitudes - you’ve gone mad, no?”

 

After lunch, they come across goats grazing in a grass field that they pass. They’re really tame and one of them licks at Roger’s outstretched hand. Roger snorts.

“Hey Rafa, check us out. We’re right at home with these guys.”

“Stop.”

“ _Goats_. Get it? Get it?”

Rafa scoffs and shakes his head, swats him on the shoulder. Roger looks really pleased with himself and his laugh is nasal and uncontrolled, slapping his thigh, his nose scrunched up in pleasure at the genius of his own cheesy comedy.

 

“I don’t know you, Roger. Ok?”

“Oh come on, it was funny.”

“Not funny. Zero percent funny.” But Rafa’s trying to hide his smile under his collar.

“Then why you laughing, Rafa? Huh?”

 

Rafa pretends to leave. “I’m not a goat, I’m just a boy. Just….doesn’t matter.”

 

And he’s joking, his smile wide and shy, but Roger can see the exact moment, when for a split second, Rafa is serious. He’s joking, but he’s not. Which brings them to why Rafa is here. No, Roger shouldn’t talk about that right now, not when they were doing so well. He’ll bring it up when they’re back at the cabin.

They hike a few more miles and rest up at the summit on the greenest grass Rafa has ever seen. It’s almost off season, right at the beginning of winter when the top players go to London. Yet here they are, sandwiched between Paris-Bercy and The World Tour Finals, feeling old, tender and out of sorts.

They are quiet for a long time. There’s that strange intimacy again. Rafa feels himself blushing, can’t even look at Roger, who’s laid down next to him with his hair in perfect waves and his wedding ring a golden spark on his ring fingers. If he looks over, he knows Roger will smile at him, keep eye contact for a bit too long. And after all these years, that’ll still be too much.

Eventually, Rafa packs up the picnic basket and gets up, picking his wedgie out of his ass and brushing the grass from his jeans.

 

“Go back now?”

“You don’t wanna stay for the sunset?”

“I need to take a shower.”

“Come on, just another hour.”

 

Rafa looks down, his hands twisting into knots, his legs restless.

 

“I guess it will be dark soon”, admits Roger.

“Yes.”

 

Roger gets up and shakes the grass from his tracksuit pants, guides Rafa gently by the waist onto the path home. They walk swiftly, making idle conversation.

Roger wonders when he forgot that Rafa likes to have his showers 12 hours apart, and that they last for 40 minutes on the dot, and that Rafa uses two towels to dry off. That he starts sweating all over his skin almost immediately after, no matter how cold it is. They’ve been out of each other’s circles way too long.

Rafa’s skin looks smooth and dewy at dinner, and he’s smiling softly at Roger, perhaps a bit too sleepy to inhibit himself, to control himself the way he has all day.

This precious, first day they’ve spent together in ages.

Roger doesn’t feel tired. He doesn’t want to go to sleep and make the day end.


	3. almost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know.. it's been a while. and all the chapters aren't really flowing well from one to the other. I've never done a WIP before. this is gonna be a mess i'm so sorry

Right then and there, Rafa thinks later, is where it had been just perfect. That night at dinner they are just friends having fun, talking, being close but not that close. That balance kept all week during rafa's visit would’ve been the ideal scenario, and Rafa would’ve left, no stones turned and no feathers ruffled, no confessions made, the spark between him and Roger just that, the lust and love he felt just something he kept to himself, a half forgotten dream he occasionally woke up from, hard, that he then stroked himself to completion over.   
  
And that’s always the problem. The dreams.   
  
  
That third morning, he wakes up feeling as relaxed and as happy as he's ever been. It’s still dawn, and he is still between dream and reality, that greyness where he couldn’t be sure what had happened in the dream and what was happening in reality.   
  
This dream is as cheesy and as unrealistic as it comes. In it, Rafa gets predictably wooed and swept to bed in Roger's arms. They kiss telenovela-style in dramatic lighting. There are confessions of love, the glinting of wedding rings, photos of them looking cringingly happy on the mantlepiece, yada yada yada. If Rafa was watching this on telly, he’d be scoffing at it as garbage for housewives while Maribel rolled her eyes and looked at him with a knowing smile. 

 

Dream Rafa is swooning, Dream Roger is warm and broad and oh so manly, and somehow all this cheesiness is completely normal. Dream Rafa isn’t cynical or anxious, he is just… happy, content, aroused, in love. The sense memory of Roger's skin and his course chest hair over his hardened muscle feels so vivid. The feeling of Roger's dick in his hand is so clear, and dream Rafa is so sure about his reality, isn’t feeling a hint of anxiety or doubt about what they are doing. Dream Roger stares at him with dark, lustful eyes while he strips, he grabs Rafa's ass and pulls him close until Rafa can feel the sensitive tip of his own penis against Roger's hip. Then Roger pulls him down to bed, kisses him: forces his tongue inside rafa's mouth and holds his jaw open. Roger touches him everywhere, licks him between his legs until Rafa is screaming in bliss, dragging the soles of his feet along Roger’s back, trying to fall into Roger’s mouth. Then things so blissfully blurry until it’s all smooth fucking, Rafa riding Roger, moaning and bucking his hips to a wild, intense rhythm as he takes Roger inside him like a pornstar.

 

(In hindsight, Rafa really should have known this was a dream. Riding someone never goes this smoothly really.)   
  


But then Rafa wakes up, and Roger is sitting beside him and staring at him with a cup of coffee in his hand. There’s the smell of sugar and cream in the air. 

 

So his brain stops working, preferring to go the easy route, preferring to really believe, and he sits up and runs his fingers over Roger’s cheek. Roger keeps staring.

 

Rafa does the next logical thing there is, and leans forward to plant a kiss.

  
  


Why wasn’t it smooth and wet and perfect like it had been last night? Why were Roger’s lips not opening, why wasn’t Roger running his fingers through Rafa’s hair and tilting his head just so and taking Rafa’s bottom lip in and biting down and-

 

Roger coughs and pulls away. He’s frozen, eyes wide open in confusion and a blush creeping up his cheeks and nose. 

  
  


Which is when Rafa realises. This is real.

  
  
  


***

 

Everything is horribly awkward. Horridly.

 

“Rafa. I, I-”

“Roger. Oh no.”

 

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” says Roger curtly, and flees.

 

Rafa gets up slowly. It has snowed overnight and outside the huge windows in the room Roger’s had made up for him, everything looks frosty and dewy and beautiful. 

 

He wants to get up and run for a few miles away from here, just be alone with his thoughts and work himself into a sweat before he works himself into a panic. But no, it’s too late. He’s already panicking. It’s coming in slow waves of sweat and a pounding heartbeat. No tears though. 

 

But it had felt so real. How could he trust anything his brain did if that was how easy he was to fool? If that was how easily he could mix his stupid dreams with actual reality?

 

But he couldn’t just run away, could he? Roger said he’d see him at breakfast. Roger had sounded so clipped. Rafa closes his eyes. It hurts to think about how badly he’s fucked this relationship up.

 

“Get up. Get up. Get up get up get up, Rafael.” 

 

He talks to himself like he’s done all his life.  _ Just get up Rafa. If Roger can ignore it so can you. Get the fuck up. _

  
  
***  
  
  
  


At breakfast, it feels like they are going to ignore the whole thing.  _ Fine _ , thinks Rafa angrily. Just great. Roger isn’t looking at him, seems to be really concentrating on buttering his bread roll. Rafa really doesn’t want to be here anymore with him. 

 

“Roger, i’ll book a flight today. To leave.”

“What? Why?”

 

Rafa stays silent, unable to say, ‘because i kissed you and made everything horrible, you idiot’ .

 

Roger sighs.. 

“Rafa.. don’t worry about it. Okay? Don’t. Let’s try to enjoy this week.’

“But-”

“Rafa. Seriously. Don’t worry. We can still be friends.”

 

Rafa loses grip of his fork. It clutters onto the oak table and everything blacks out for a moment. When he comes back, Roger is giving him a wary smile and a nod, and then looking away to go back to his toast.

 

(He doesn’t need to know, Roger thinks, about the agonising moments Roger had spent afterwards. About how his first instinct had been to run, to gloss over and pretend it didn’t happen… about how inside, he’d been burning. Rafa doesn’t need to know that because why complicate life in that sense?)

 

(Roger’s married, Rafa tells himself. Roger’s married with four kids and Rafa has no business, absolutely no business, feeling this way. None. Did he want to be nothing better than the woman who’d come between his friend Jose from high school and his first wife? Wasn’t he raised better? The gall, the  _ absolute gall _ , how  _ dare  _ he do this? What kind of man did this make him, if he was so weak willed?) 

 

So the day re-starts. 

 

***

 

Morning is for a few miles on the ellipticals. Roger does his exercises very carefully. They hit the weights for a few hours in the morning and then the logical next step is an ice bath to help their muscles recover. Neither of them register the cold - they’ve done this for so many years that now it’s routine.

 

Rafa stares at the muscles on Roger’s hairy chest and feels his face going red. 

 

“What?” Roger asks, with a flirty raise of his bushy eyebrows. How does he do it, Rafa wonders. If Rafa was Roger and Rafa had done that to him, he’d have been a mess.  _ Is. _ But here Roger was, cool as a cucumber, as suave as he could be. All swiss and serene like nothing phased him. 

 

“Rafa?”

 

Rafa blurts out the first thing that comes to his stupid mind. 

“You work out more now?”

“Hmm?”

“Just, you’re more big than I remember, no?” Rafa gestures at Roger’s shoulders, willing himself to stop talking. 

“Oh, yeah. Well, my game’s changed a bit since I was in my twenties you know? Had to change my conditioning a bit more. You’ve lost even more weight right?”

“Ya. Not much, but a little bit. I am on a diet. Urggh.”

“Oh no. Can’t eat all the chocolate you want like you used to?”

 

Rafa splashes ice water at him. Leans into the bath a bit more, grinning, and Roger gets back at him immediately, splashing a perfect arc of cold water in Rafa’s face as gracefully as he would hit a forehand. Rafa coughs up a mouthful and tries to get the hair out of his eyes while Roger laughs, not a hair out of place. 

 

_ Roger irrompible _ . Teflon. So unaffected by it all. If Rafa had kissed him longer, harder this morning, would it have stuck? Would it have shown anywhere on Roger’s face? Would Roger have been unable to just dismiss it like he had? Or was he always like this? 

  
  


***

 

“Rafael, what did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“I swear to God-”

“Toni, seriously. It’s all good. Only five days more. Relax.”

“Just - just-”

“Ok, Tio, I got to go now, bye!”

“Rafael!”

  
  


***

  
  
  
  


They go for another hike in the evening just before dinner. 

 

They’re so utterly alone. Unless there’s paparazzi in the steep mountain bushes or hiding amongst the herds of goats and cows. 

 

“Unlikely!” says Roger cheerfully. He’s so cheerful today, Roger. Overtly so. Like he’s trying really hard to keep them off what happened this morning. 

 

“Rafa, stop looking like that.”

“Hmm?”

“Like you’re sorry you exist. It’s ok, ok? You were so sleepy this morning, probably had a nice dream about somebody, ey? Got confused?”

 

Roger’s giving him an out. Holy fuck. This is when Rafa would go along with it.   
  
“Hmm.”

“Exactly. It’s all okay. Okay?”

 

The goats bleat chaotically. 

 

What an infuriatingly happy person, Rafa thinks, looking at Roger, at the ease with which he navigated life. Rafa can barely imagine how Roger Federer sees the world.   
  
  


***

 

Nightfall. They’re on Roger’s balcony, leaning against the railing, sharing a bottle of really mild red wine. 

 

Something that won’t impede too much on the training, Roger had promised his physio. Rafa nurses the one glass Roger poured him during dinner. It’s only when he glances at the almost empty bottle between them that he realises Roger must be on at least his third.

 

“Roger?”

“Yeah, Rafa?”

“You drink enough, no?”

“Oh. Yeah. I love this wine. It’s good wine. Fruity.”

 

Roger gulps down more.

 

“If I am making you uncomfortable-”

 

“No, no. No. You’re not. God, you could never, Rafa. I’m a big boy.”

 

He’s defensive, his spine alert, standing upright on his legs, no longer relaxed against the railing. This is the first sign, Rafa thinks, of Roger’s whole persona not being as effortless as it looks most of the time. Rafa wonders if he should’ve listened to his gut instinct this morning and just run, packed a bag and caught a jet out of here before it got like this. But now it is too late.

  
  


  
'Where’d you get this shirt?’ Roger asks out of nowhere, suddenly stood unmoving and jitterless, in front of him.

 

‘What?’

 

‘The shirt you’re wearing. It’s nice.’

 

Rafa blushes.

  
'Oh..I dont know... I think in America.'

 

Then it’s cricket-chirping, wind-whirling silence for god knows how long. This is like being down break point and waiting for your lob to come down on the other side, Rafa thinks… those horrible few seconds when you’re scared it might land  _ just _ out….

  
'These jeans..’ Roger mutters. ‘They look soft. you always wear them...'

 

‘Roger. Strange questions. You don’t wanna talk about nothing else?’

 

Roger shrugs. Maybe shuffles half a step closer. ‘I like fashion. So, old jeans?’

  
  


  
'Yes' Rafa laughed. 'They’re very old. I like it. So comfortable. You know?'   
  
'Could i gift you a pair of jeans? Would you be okay with it?'

  
'Oh.'

 

Fuck. The lob’s landed on the baseline and the other guy’s somehow got a return in and the point is still going on - oh god-

  
'Not that these jeans don’t look great. They do. Really. Just-'

  
Roger looked vexed, anxious even. It looked strange and unfamiliar on his face.   
  
'Roger, you can give me jeans.'

  
'I will.'

  
'As long it can fit me right, you know? Fit properly my-my-'

  
And rafa wacks his own ass with his free palm, and watches, greedily, when a deep blush creeps through Roger's cheeks.   
  
'I’ll get my Belgian tailor.’

 

The thick, polished wood of the balcony railing feels cold against Rafa’s back. And Roger had enough tailors to warrant describing one of them as Belgian.

 

‘Ok.’

 

How, Rafa thinks, is it that there are so many fucking crickets in Switzerland chirping outside Roger Federer’s mansion at this very instant?

 

‘He's really good. You'll like him. He...he will be thrilled to dress you, trust me.'

  
'That’s very nice of you.'

  
'No problem.'

  
'Thanks.’

  
'Ah. don’t. It’s my pleasure.'    


  
Roger is looking somewhere between rafa's chest and neck, can’t seem to bring himself to meet his eyes. What a weirdo, Rafa thinks endearingly, impossibly wanting to kiss him again. What a dork. Who offered to buy a guy jeans? Roger Federer, that’s who.

 

Roger Federer, who hasn’t made eye contact with Rafa in what felt like hours.

 

All the better, Rafa thinks. Roger didn’t need to look at Rafa right now, because if he did Roger would know. How obvious could Rafa be, how stupidly, dangerously more blatant could this stupid crush be? If Roger thought an accidental kiss was the end of it, well, he didn’t know the half of it. And Rafa wouldn’t even think about how Mirka or Mary would feel if Roger wanted to, he knows that, and he’s ashamed, but-

 

  
'Rafa?'  Roger mutters, eyelashes fluttering downwards still.

  
'Hmm?'

  
'You smell nice.'

  
  
If Roger wanted this whole drama from this morning to be a joke, to be forgotten, why would he say that?

 

  
'It's your perfume.’ Rafa stutters out. ‘Your gym bathroom. i used a bit...sorry. I-'

  
'No no. Don’t be sorry. can I-?'   


  
And without waiting for an answer, Roger nuzzles into the exposed nape of Rafa's neck, the fingers of his left hand splaying across Rafa's adam’s apple. 

 

Rafa thinks he might be having a heart attack. There are gusts of warm breadth from Roger across his skin…. And then Roger looks up straight into his eyes, so close to Rafa he could see the crows feet around Roger’s eyes and the splotches on the delicate skin on his cheeks, how red his nose is…..

 

And then Roger looks down, again, and breaths, and breaths.. until Rafa is matching him and the whole world might just be only them breathing.. and then Roger breaks the synchronicity with a kiss, delicate, full-lipped, and warm, where Rafa’s collarbone juts out at the apex of his neck.   
  
'Roger...oh..'

 

  
'Sorry. I-'

 

'It’s ok.'  
  


‘It’s a nice perfume. Isn’t it?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘I bought it in Venice. Gucci.’

 

‘Oh, ok. Good, no?’

  
'God, Rafa,' Roger’s so close now, his entire body plastered across Rafa's front. Rafa stretches his neck out, letting Roger access more. Roger shudders and Rafa feels the way the railing vibrates when Roger blindly grabs onto it instead of Rafa’s hips (oh god, Rafa thinks, why couldn’t Roger just hold him by the hips and grind into him? Why was he trying to resist,  _ why _ ?), only barely hears the bottle of wine fall off to shatter against the granite outside. On cue he feels Roger's lips open over his skin, Roger’s teeth, the pressure of them light but sending a shiver that goes straight to his cock. He’s hard, and he can feel the pressure of Roger’s tall, lithe body against him.   
  


‘Why did you have to kiss me this morning?” Roger asks, a desperate tone in his voice.

 

‘I’m sorry about that.’

 

‘Are you really?’

 

‘No,’ Rafa admits. Roger looks up.

 

They stare at each other for what feels like ages, millimetres away from their lips meeting. But it must have just been seconds.

 

“Rafa…” Roger begins, wetting his lips-

 

There are floodlights from somewhere getting brighter. There’s a vehicle honking and honking for ages, until Rafa, through the hazy daze of Roger’s presence, hears the high voices of children chattering about in Swiss German as they run from the gate towards the house.

 

Roger’s children. They’re back from their own vacation.


End file.
